The strict quarantine measures employed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic have led the global tourism industry to a complete halt, disrupting the livelihoods of millions. The economic importance of beach tourism for many destinations has led many governments to reopen tourist beaches, as soon as the number of infection cases decreased. The objective of this paper is to provide a scientific basis for understanding the key issues for beach tourism management in these circumstances. These issues include risk perception, environmental considerations directly related to beaches and COVID-19, and management strategies designed to limit the risk of contagion on the beach. The contribution of this paper lies in its interdisciplinary approach to delivering the findings from the latest studies, highly relevant for beach tourism, in psychology, health science, and environmental science (often in preprint and in press format). Particular attention was given to identifying the knowledge gaps evident in the areas of COVID-19 risk perception, with the drivers explaining the risk-taking behavior and the protective strategies employed by beachgoers. Gaps were also found in areas such as the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in bathing waters and the sand, the potential of contaminated sand being a viable route of transmission, and the impact of the use of chemical disinfectants on the marine environment and on bathers. The paper identifies research prospects in these areas, additionally pointing out other questions such as new carrying capacity methods, the opportunity given by COVID-19 in estimation of the impacts of visitation and beach-litter.

Many developing countries have recognized the potential of their natural resources for the development of tourism. However, the policies designed to provide a framework for socially inclusive and ecologically sound tourism turn out to be weak in fostering community-based tourism (CBT). There is a spectrum of conditions that lead to success or failure of CBT initiatives that should be accounted for by national policies to ensure meaningful community engagement. This paper proposes a framework for the evaluation of tourism policy documents based on factors that facilitate and constrain CBT in developing countries. The framework was applied to seven tourism policy documents in Colombia using a content analysis approach. The results showed that the policies are weak in providing a base for community engagement in CBT. International experiences indicate that the barriers to CBT are similar throughout the world; thus, the framework is useful in the evaluation of policy documents in other developing countries.

Cleaning is a fundamental concern of beach managers in many destinations as well as an important requirement in beach quality awards. However, it has been largely neglected in the literature. This paper provides an overview of empirical studies on beach cleaning and analyzes cleaning-related requirements of 11 beach awards that generate controversy in the literature. This study comments on key aspects of beach cleaning, resolves various misconceptions, and provides new perspectives by integrating related topics drawn from a wide range of literature. The arguments based on both the ecological and tourism managerial perspectives are presented, indicating the gaps and proposing research solutions. The paper calls for empirical studies with regard to the efficiency of different cleaning approaches on beaches with varying levels of use intensity and for methodological designs that separate the impacts of mechanical grooming from those of trampling, dune destruction, shore armoring, artificial lighting, among others.

A spectrum of operational, structural, and cultural conditions leads to the successorfailureofcommunity-basedtourism(CBT)initiatives.Knowledge of these factors is crucial in the design, evaluation, and monitoring of CBT. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the factors that facilitate and inhibitCBTinthenaturalareasofdevelopingcountries.Adirectedcontent analysis of 68 case studies from literature identified 25 external and 32 internal factors. Based on the 77 factors obtained, a methodology to evaluate CBT initiatives is proposed that can serve as a framework to (1) evaluate initiatives in terms of their feasibility for CBT, current performance, and issues to be solved by management; (2) compare the performance of various initiatives; (3) prioritize factors for the success of CBT; and (4) statistically analyse the relationships among factors. The paper concludes that although several previous studies identified success factors and barriers for CBT, surprisingly little work has been published to create a universal framework to evaluate CBT initiatives. Further research is suggested to explore the statistical relationships among the factors and to define the relative importance of each factor in the success or failure of CBT initiatives.

Rural community tourism initiatives in developed nations share most positive and negative characteristics with community-based tourism (CBT) initiatives in developing nations. They also share many barriers and conditions for tourism development. What makes them different is the context in which they operate. This paper identifies the main conditions that explain these differences through a review of findings from 103 location-specific case studies and other available literature that provides empirical evidence. The paper also explores the usage of the concepts of CBT and rural tourism. The findings are discussed under seven categories: Definitions, socioeconomic and cultural factors, policy and governance, land ownership, community cohesiveness, assimilation of external stakeholders, and type of visitors. It is argued that it is the developing-/developed-nation context, and not objectively established criteria, which largely dictates authors’ narratives with corresponding takes on tourism development and subsequent recommendations. The paper engages in a discussion about case-study research, its weaknesses and tendencies, providing some recommendations on how to increase the contribution of case studies to knowledge, and calls for more research on externally assisted non-Indigenous community-tourism initiatives in developed nations.